Trinity Women Upset Top-Seeded Princeton In National Semis
by David Kingsley
February 16, 2013 New Haven, Conn. – Rookies Sachika Balvani (Mumbai, India) and Kanzy El-Defrawy both posted 3-0 victories to turn a 3-3 tie into a 5-3 match-clinching lead, as the Trinity College Bantams pulled off a 6-3 upset win over the top-seeded and previously-undefeated Princeton University Tigers in the College Squash Association (CSA) National Championship (Howe Cup) Semifinals this afternoon at Yale University’s Brady Courts.
Trinity, which had its regular-season finale against the Tigers canceled due to last weekend’s blizzard in Connecticut, has a two-game winning streak in the Howe Cup against Princeton, having won, 6-3, in the 2011-12 Third-Place Match in the last meeting between the teams before today. Trinity improves to its season record to 16-2, while the Tigers fall to 12-1, having lost to only the Bantams in their last 14 matches dating back to last year. Princeton will play Pennsylvania in the Third-Place Match tomorrow at Yale.
Trinity, seeded No. 4 in the tournament, advances to the Howe Cup Finals for the sixth time and the first time since the 2005-06 campaign. The Bantams will play No. 2-seeded Harvard, which downed No. 3-seeded Pennsylvania, 6-3, in the other semifinal today. In their regular-season matchup on February 6, Harvard defeated the Bantams, 7-2, in Cambridge. Trinity, coached by Wendy Bartlett (29th Season), won the Howe Cup in 2001-02 and 2002-03, defeating Harvard in the 2001-02 Finals for its first National title. Harvard, which has won 13 Howe Cups including the 2011-12 crown, boasts a Howe Cup Finals win over the Bantams in 2000-01.
Junior Wee Nee Low (Penang, Malaysia) shook off a 3-1 defeat in yesterday’s 7-2 victory over No. 5-seeded Yale in the CSA Quarterfinals to earn a win over Princeton sophomore Nicole Bunyan (Victoria, British Columbia) by the same score, and sophomore Natalie Babjukova (Prague, Czech Republic) improved her unblemished season record to 18-0 with a dramatic 3-2 triumph over Tiger junior Lexi Saunders (Wilmington, Del.) to give the Bantams a 2-1 lead after the first wave. Babjukova rallied back from a 2-1 deficit with an 11-8 win in game four and a 12-10 victory in game five. Bantam senior tri-captain Robyn Hodgson (Aberdeen, Scotland) salvaged the second wave with a 3-1 win at the No. 5 position over sophomore Alex Lunt (Greenwich, Conn.), knotting the overall team score at 3-3 two-thirds of the way through.
Balvani and El Defrawy took it from there, as Balvani won three nail-biters, 12-10, 11-9, and, 12-10, over junior Alex Sawin (Haverford, Pa.) in the No. 7 match, and El Defrawy dominated at the top spot for an 11-1, 11-9, 11-5 victory over senior Julie Cerullo (Brooklyn, N.Y.) who was ranked No. 4 in the nation individually at the end of the last year.
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